Tuesday, May 10, 2005

A revamped PGA Tour season?

Best read of the morning is SI's Gary Van Sickle's story on what's wrong with the PGA Tour's schedule and how to fix it. Essentially the suggestion is that the Tour keeps a year-round schedule in order to keep any contenders from entering the fray (ie: Greg Norman's proposed events from a view years back).

Among Van Sickle's suggestions is that the season start later and end earlier. He suggests dropping several events, reconfiguring others (the Players Championship would be moved to May) and moving the Canadian Open, once an important event, to August. Moving the Canadian Open ahead a month would open up wonderful course possibilities and make the event significant again.

He'd end the season at the start of October, cutting it down from its current 48-events. The problem, as I see it, with the PGA Tour is that no season as such currently exists. Golf seems to go year round and viewers just can't keep focused on a never-ending season. And, as I've said about events like the John Deere Classic, there are several tour stops that are simply not going to draw any stars and will garner very little attention. Why bother if no ones comes or tunes in? Time to shake this up, but in order to do that, Tim Finchem would need to make some significant alterations to the schedule and sponsor set up. Don't expect that to happen -- unless the television network that bids on the new PGA Tour television contract forces his hand.

Line of the day: Van Sickle calls the Sony Open, "the Michelle Wie Invitational."

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